Rai

Another fun instalment in Murderbot's tales and hijinks across the systems, stretching itself further than before in a variety of ways.

This was a quick read although nothing special. I was expecting more suspense and maybe a bit more creepiness compared to court-room drama, sleuthing and inconsequential - almost random - KGB old boys. It felt a bit drawn out and slow-paced with no shock reveals to speak of. As the Goodreads ratings say “it was OK”.

What irked me most was that it felt at times as if the author, through these characters, was trying to justify things like toxic masculinity, objectification of women, xenophobia and other such things. That grated on me because not only was it a bit gross, trying to rationalise objectionable behaviour (including the far-right), but also utterly unnecessary; it added nothing to the story so only seemed to be there for the author to moan about ‘political correctness'. While I tried to ignore these sections and get on with the story, it has certainly put me off reading more of Coben's work in the future.

An inspirational read despite some rather dense science involved.

Carlo Rovelli does a good job and explaining complex scientific ideas to non-experts. His prose is well-written and quite beautiful. It isn't all hard science as there is a certain element of story-telling as he recounts the journey of knowledge that has brought us to where we stand today with quantum gravity and loop theory.

That being said, you almost definitely need to have an interest in theoretical physics in order to persist through the more obtuse and complicated sections. I feel like I absorbed maybe 70% of the science explained in this book and the remaining 30% I suspect I may never fully grasp, although, as Rovelli argues science is all about butting up against those things we don't know or don't fully understand. I'm happy with what I did take away from the book.

Aside from the formulae and theories and equations, this is an enlightening and inspirational read that will provoke some philosophical questions in its reader. How much more might we know now if the science of antiquity had not been destroyed? What might we be able to do if 1400 years hadn't been lost to the dominion of religion over science? It's an interesting question to think on, when reading Rovelli's accounts of how much science has advanced since 1900, when it was free to do so.

This and my other reviews are on my website: Aspects of Me.

As always, Chambers gives us a great set of characters and a snapshot of their lives at pivotal moments. This instalment looks a lot at traditions and inter-cultural (or, in the book, inter-species) relations. Understanding others who are different from yourself. Beautifully written, cosy sci-fi.

This is a brilliant book that, while fictional, is drawn from the author's own experiences as a black woman in a predominantly white environment in the aftermath of police shooting and killing Oscar Grant (2009). Thomas has taken some of her own experiences, feelings and even guilt over her silence in that situation and turned it into a novelisation focusing on Starr, a 16 year old black girl who attends a predominantly white private school and lives in - as she describes it - “the ghetto”.

Starr witnesses her childhood friend Khalil get shot dead by a policeman and the book then follows her as she struggles to keep herself and her world from falling apart. She seeks justice for Khalil while her neighbourhood erupts into riots and the police roll in with tanks and tear-gas.

Black Lives Matter has been around since 2013 and we have seen a huge surge this year, 2020, again following the multiple unlawful killings of unarmed black people by police in America. THUG is as relevant now as it was in 2017 and when it began as a college short story for Angie Thomas in 2009. Despite being fictionalised this is a very realistic account of aftermath of one such police shooting and the various ways in which oppressed people can react.

I am not usually one for YA but this book doesn't feel like YA to me. By all means, it still is, I mean more than it doesn't dumb things down and that's important especially with a topic like this.

If you haven't read it, please do so, it's a brilliant book with captivating prose and a seriously important story.

This is a short novella introducing the character of Murderbot, a free agent security android on its final contract with a surveying team on an uninhabited world, as it tries to avoid interacting with the clients (the humans) as much as possible and chill out watching serials and reading books. An introvert's dream!Unfortunately for Murderbot, the world is not as uninhabited as the team were told and Mb takes some serious damage rescuing two of its client scientists from the maw of a very large, very chompy hostile entity. Investigating how The Company could've neglected to warn the team about the local fauna highlights some discrepancies they have to work together to figure out and escape the planet alive. Much to Murderbot's annoyance as those serials won't watch themselves!The story is told first person by Murderbot and this adds to the appeal of this story as Wells successfully gets us to empathise with and root for a rogue AI who has dubbed itself MURDERBOT (not the most sympathetic of names, is it?) but who really just wants to be left alone. The action is fast-paced but not rushed; the world building is just right for such a short book and the ‘touchy-feely' parts that Mb hates so much make you think. A good all-round balance and I look forward to reading the rest of the series.I listened to the audiobook narrated by Kevin R. Free, which was 3h 40m long, and while Free's narration style sounds an awful lot like [a:Wil Wheaton 37075 Wil Wheaton https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1356706649p2/37075.jpg] it definitely fits well with Murderbot's sarcastic and misanthropic demeanour.

I wouldn't describe this as a horror. To me I wasn't scared or frightened. It is a very clever and depressingly accurate look at a society that allows hideous things to happen to a child/disabled person. If, however, any of that comes as a shock to a you, I do wonder where you've been living these last two decades.

Fun alt-history wester caper with some lovely queer characters and hippos. Well written with a good baddie you can hate, just the right amount of backstory and some big explosions. Great novella.

Note: this was an e-ARC courtesy of NetGalley and the publishers in exchange for an honest review

To me, one of the key features of a thriller or mystery book is that I can't guess the ending. Unfortunately for Final Cut, I guessed the ‘big twist' within the first 20% of the book and spent the rest of the time waiting to be proved right as the author threw things at me to try and convince me otherwise. By the final 10%, where said twist is revealed and everything I had guessed was confirmed I felt more like I had been reading as a chore and that the majority of the story had been inconsequential.

The MC at times behaves contrary to all the information she has available to her; pursuing a man she's accusing of murdering girls that in a previous or next chapter she's adamant are both alive despite everyone she ‘trusts' in the village telling her said man wouldn't have done such a thing, that he's harmless and he's only ever tried to help. Her complete belligerence at blaming him for events seems completely at odds with her relatively logical approach to everything else. It felt too much like the author was trying to force a distraction on the reader to disguise the truth. The MC trusts some complete strangers that no-one has vouched for but then doesn't trust this other stranger who everyone has vouched for.

The story itself had potential and is almost certainly, and depressingly, based on the terrible abuses real people have suffered and it is a shame it has been executed so poorly here in Final Cut. While the MC is struggling with her memory, I still don't think that forgives the confused signals we get from her and her motivations.

Finally, I am unsure whether the e-ARC I received had chapters out of order as there were two occasions were the MC references other characters by name who we have not been introduced to yet and in a subsequent chapter we're then introduced to them. As I say, I'm not sure if this was a mistake and edits will be done before publication or whether it was intentional as an attempt to make the reader doubt their own memory, much as our MC does throughout the book. In either event, I found it frustrating and it felt like a mistake so made me wonder about the editing process. There was one other instance that I spotted which seemed to have been missed in editing - whether that's picked up on between now and retail, maybe, so I let it slide.

Overall, there was a bit too much that didn't make sense in the book on top of the poor characterisation, weird editing decisions and the endless buffeting of distractions away from an otherwise predictable ending.

This and my other reviews are on my site: Aspects of Me.

A very good conclusion to the Greatcoats series as we see the final trials of Falcio, Kest and Brasti to secure the throne and bring their country back from the brink of self-destruction. There's new problems on the horizon for our trio of heroes that they set their heads against with their usual poor-odds, pantsing style.

By book 4 there's little more I can say that I haven't already about the writing, the characters and the storytelling - all very good and enjoyable. If you made it as far as Saint's Blood then it's entirely worth it to finish off the series in Tyrant's Throne.

For the series as a whole, I am glad I decided to join in a readalong and got introduced to this immensely fun world that is so compelling and easy-to-read while remaining thoroughly epic without much magic involved. It is definitely worth a read if you enjoy a lot of sword fights, a smidge of politics, a touch of foreboding and three central characters who are a tightly bonded unit who are loyal to each other.

The book is set between the first two films and this was the Audible dramatisation of it. These Dirk Maggs audio-dramas in the Alien universe are a great addition and I'd 100% recommend them to any fans of the franchise. Audible has handily turned them episodic so you can fit little 30 mins bites into your day between meetings, on lunch breaks or commuting.

The voice acting is exceptional (they found someone who sounds remarkably like Sigourney Weaver in Laurel Lefkow) and the soundscapes and music are similarly brilliant. Rutger Hauer as Ash was excellent and really made it feel so much like the film; it'll be a while before I can get his enunciation of “Science Officer Ash reporting...” out of my head.

Unsurprisingly this is an adaptation of [a:Octavia E. Butler 29535 Octavia E. Butler https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1242244143p2/29535.jpg]'s [b:Kindred 60931 Kindred Octavia E. Butler https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1339423248l/60931.SY75.jpg 1049657] from 1978, in which author Dana is pulled back in time to protect a young white boy in the US South in the 1800s. As a black woman, this is a dangerous place and time to be and to stand out. Each time she gets pulled back to save him from a different threat she ends up stuck in the past for longer and longer periods of time. On one occassion her (white) husband gets pulled back with her and they have to hide the true nature of their relationship to survive.Dana struggles when faced with the slavery, racism, misogyny and violence in the past that she had only read about until then. She eventually becomes another victim to it and is pushed further into desperation as she tries to find a way home and never to be pulled back again.What only lasts a few weeks in the 1970s is years spent in the past and both Dana and husband are changed forever by their experiences.There are a lot of heavy themes in Kindred and this new graphic novel adaptation is an excellent way to introduce the story to a greater wealth of readers. Butler used sci-fi concepts to explore key themes that are intrinsic to our lives in the real world. As saddening as it is to realise, Kindred remains as relevant now as it was 40+ years ago.CW: racist slurs, sexism, sexual assualt, rape, slavery, child death, murder

Surprisingly this came as a recommendation from my mother who is very rarely into SF and she gave me her copy to read after she was done. It took me a while to feel ‘in the mood' for SF and I eventually picked it up earlier this year (2019) and I absolutely adored it.It made me think, it made me tear-up, it made me smile, it made me tense and I love the character-driven nature of it all. This is not your average ‘jump in the spaceship and go to war' sort of SF and it is all the better for it. This is a story about people and it happens to be in space. Gorgeous, interesting people with actual relationships that I really invested in.I found the inclusion of gender-variance and the exploration of self-hood very natural and not shoe-horned at all. The depiction of the different races' values and customs was well done and highlights where so much other SF is lacking. Chambers seems to have a mind much like my own in realising SF shouldn't be so human-centric. We shouldn't assume alien races would even want to know us let alone change their entire culture to accommodate us should we ever reach the stars.It doesn't hurt that the cover art for all three of the series is very tasty and I ordered [b:A Closed and Common Orbit 29475447 A Closed and Common Orbit (Wayfarers, #2) Becky Chambers https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1457598923s/29475447.jpg 48620653] immediately after finishing this one and I cannot wait to get started. Even if you are not a sci-fi person normally (like my mum), this is still well worth your time. It is an enlightening, inspirational and genuine pleasure to read.

Billed as being accessible physics concepts for the non-expert, the book breaks down some of the keystones of modern physics into neat little “lessons”, making it easy to pick up and put down after each one if you need a moment to mull each lesson over. Admittedly, it does seem to fall down a little in the aim of making complex theories available to ‘the masses', as some of the threads are hard to follow if you are a non-expert.

Despite that, I found it to be a brilliant book as a cursory peek behind the curtain and, for some, a glance may be enough. For others, I suspect, this will leave you yearning for more substantial works.

The Audible production narrated by James Franco: read for Banned Books Week 2020.I'm not sure what to make of SH5 because the narration by Franco was so very difficult to pay attention to. His voice was incredible soporific and not in a good way. The narration was frustratingly boring so I have no idea whether the book itself was boring or if it's the narration that's put me offThis book has been banned multiple times (in America) for “explicit sexual scenes, violence, and obscene language.” or “strong sexual content.” although whether some or all of those ban reasons were a smoke-screen for the anti-war sentiments I don't know. To me, there wasn't anything particularly explicit in terms of sex or violence. Sure, there's a few instances of swearing but it's an adult fiction book, why is that ban-able?I am unsure what within the book was ban-able as equally unsure as I am that it warrants the accolades it has as a ‘sci-fi classic'. It's a simple account of a man's life that happens to be told out of order because that's how he experienced it after becoming ‘unstuck in time'. If you're looking for a good, time-out-of-order sci-fi novel, [b:Use of Weapons 12007 Use of Weapons (Culture #3) Iain M. Banks https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1587400756l/12007.SX50.jpg 1494156] is a considerably better offering. If you plan to read Slaugherhouse-Five, I can only suggest avoiding the Franco narrated audiobook.

chef's kiss Muah!Mm. Yes. Please. Thank you.Loved this, - perhaps not as much as [b:The Fifth Season 19161852 The Fifth Season (The Broken Earth, #1) N.K. Jemisin https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1386803701l/19161852.SY75.jpg 26115977] but - it was everything I wanted from the series so far and more.The writing is excellent; character building is balanced and the sections with 2nd person PoV are well done and didn't effect my immersion whatsoever.The story covers a shorter overall period of time than the first book; in this entry a little over a year passes during the course of the story in which both Essun and her daughter Nassun are improving and honing their skills, albeit they seem to be on a collision course with each other for the third instalment.Besides this I don't think I can say much more without spoilers so sufficed to say this is a worthy follow-on and deeply enjoyable ‘next step' in the trilogy. If you read and enjoyed The Fifth Season, definitely keep going.

3.5 Stars

Like Scalzi's series ‘Lock In', this features a police investigation in a world that has subtly changed from our own. In ‘The Dispatcher', if someone else causes your death you have a 999 times in 1,000 chance to come back, reappearing somewhere you love/feel safe (usually at home in your bed). Our MC is a dispatcher, which is someone who is licenced to purposefully cause death in order to preserve life. For example, you get hit by a truck and you are beyond saving, they'll kill you in order for you to come back with your body restored to pre-truck status.

At the time of the story, dispatchers have been around 8 or 9 years and the phenomenon of returning has been happening for maybe a decade so there's a whole lot of industries taking advantage of dispatchers in different ways. One has gone missing and Tony Valdez (our protag) is convinced to consult with a detective in charge of finding the missing dispatcher.

This isn't a in depth mystery, as there's not enough time for it, but this is a great introductory story for this slightly-altered world that Valdez inhabits. It raises some interesting theological and moral questions along the way that add to the interest. I'd definitely consider a longer novel set in this scenario.

On the audiobook performance, Zachary Quinto has an excellent voice for this sort of work and the performance was great.

I'll give it 3 stars based on the Goodread guidelines - I liked it, but didn't REALLY like it but it was still better than “ok”.

It's a difficult book to pin down for me. I haven't read any of Jeff VanderMeer before so I can't comment on the ‘creepy' aspect of his other work - this wasn't creepy for me.

Annihilation was compelling enough to keep me reading - I wanted to see what was going to happen next; I wanted answers! - and yet I'm not sure whether or not I want to continue the series.

It was a satisfying read and I still felt there could have been more - of what? I am not entirely sure. I just had a feeling of something out of grasp upon finishing.

I will be curious to see how they adapt this into a film given the overall lack of human interactions/conversations and the biologist protagonist being alone for the majority of the time. Time, again, would be interesting to see how it is played out as the book only really lasts a week in expedition time.

As this book seems to have split opinions quite dramatically, if you are reading this looking for an answer on if you should read it, I can only give you what I based my choice on. I stood in a bookshop, thought the cover looked interesting and the back jacket blurb intrigued me. It was in a 3 for 2 offer and I was buying my mother 2 gifts at the time. I didn't read reviews until I'd already got half way through; if it intrigues you, go for it, if you're sceptical, leave it. See what the film's like and maybe that'll convince you either way.

I listened to the audiobook of this and I'm not sure if that made me more aware of some of the book's downfalls - e.g. repetition of descriptive phrases - as they're being read out loud to you.

The idea is sound and could easily have been a longer book, however it didn't build any tension for me. I was hoping for a horror story that would give me chills, or at least make me tense to see what happens next, but Gillespie House didn't do that for me.

The blurb is a little misleading, promising more sinister action than ever takes place. Despite this, it is worth a read. Charming in it's simplicity. It is a page-turner borne out of curiosity as opposed to excitement although the ending seems a little weak.I can see why it was longlisted for the Guardian's First Book Award and I can also see why it didn't win. It is expertly written and still, it has room to evolve yet hasn't. It is an excellent exercise in character building and the slow reveal of different facets of each of the protagonists.Swapping the voice between an omniscient narrator and John diarising his experiences gives the reader a bit of a change and allows different characters to be explored in other ways.I definitely liked the book, and enjoyed it, though as I have said it has some space to develop further that I would like to have seen. I would consider reading another [a:Sarah Perry 480401 Sarah Perry https://s.gr-assets.com/assets/nophoto/user/u_50x66-632230dc9882b4352d753eedf9396530.png] novel in the future if it piqued my interest.

Well, then. What can one say about Dune that has not already been said in the last half a century? Only my own thoughts. This took me a while to read; longer than I've taken with even longer books. I enjoyed it when I read it but never found myself yearning to read it. I understood things and was really interested in the schemes and control of the Bene Gesserit over the empire; seeding legends into cultures in order to serve their best interests. It's a great book; it isn't a 5 star for me simply because the ending felt a little flat and I didn't love it like I have loved some others that have got 5 stars from me.

One of the weakest of the series.

Crossings is a thriller, set in small-town Australia, with some supernatural/spiritual elements behind the mysterious, and violent, events that coincide with our main character's abusive ex returning to town.

I was reading this expecting some more of the fantastical, which turned out to be largely absent. The blurb mentions a giant white kangaroo, which is one of the supernatural elements, sort of, but not much else in the speculative realm. The mysterious giant roo doesn't make an appearance until halfway through the book and while there are some other weird goings on, this is still a thriller that happens to have some supernatural elements.

Those supernatural elements are, however, a little confused and not explored in much depth. While trying not to put spoilers in reviews is my preference, there are some ahead because I want to demonstrate what I mean by the previous statement.

–!!!spoilers!!!–

There's the giant white roo, which no one knows how it grew so big, or so white, or how it gives people visions but leaves no trace of itself behind. There's a brief mention of looking for kangaroo related myths and legends but no follow-up. The roo, as it appears to the MC (Lisa), turns out to be the ghost of the giant white kangaroo, which explains how it never leaves a trace but when she finds the body of the roo dead (still dishing out visions) it turns out those who saw it before her might've seen it pre-ghost form. Then there's the giant red kangaroo, which may or may not be a were-kangaroo situation and actually be her abusive ex.

Then there's zombie animals seeking revenge on those who killed them. But there's also a bunch of other deaths that aren't revenge killings. There's a giant kangaroo skull in her ex's basement and a pile of human skin that seems to have been cut off with a blade, including a tattoo, which she maybe sees later on the arm of the giant red roo, who is maybe behind all the zombie animals and killings? But maybe her ex is resisting it? The giant red managed to survive being shot several times, even in the chest, and then survive a rampant bush fire that carbonised everything else in sight but somehow it just disintegrated in water leaving nothing but a giant kangaroo skull (but wait, wasn't that sat in her ex's basement?). Not for any reason other than the white roo showed Lisa a vision of a river at one point.

–!!! end of spoilers!!!–

Possibly, this could've been a much more cohesive story if the disparate elements were explored more deeply and woven together. As it stands, the end of the story becomes a bit of a deus ex machina, everyone assumes the ex died in the bushfire that had been threatening to sweep the town and that he was responsible for everything. Almost in the same breath they decide that no-one will ever know what really happened here and, at this point, it doesn't matter. Lisa alone had theorised things were more than they seemed so after everything is burnt away by the bushfire or washed away by the river, there's nothing more to say or do, leaving the reader somewhat frustrated at the lack of answers.

2.5/5

This is a worthwhile read to anyone who is frustrated with the elusive Happiness that seems to evade them. It highlights that Happiness as we are fed by society and the media and social conditioning is not the same as happiness. While not all the letters flow well in between each other they are all interesting and offer a variety of perspectives.

While I do suffer from depression and I've read this while I'm in an OK place, I would not be able to get through this or listen to any of the advice if I were down in ‘that place'; the hole we can all sink to where the light doesn't reach. Some depressive types might be able to use it as a catalyst to push into an upswing but that it down to you to decide!

It is a book for anyone though, not just people who have suffered or are suffering from mental illness, as it is a great reminder that Hollywood Happiness is actually the thing that's destroying real happiness.

A short prefacing story focussing on an outcast who gets into the training school for ‘Garde' pilots (think Pacific Rim in deep space).